Drunk Dialing
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl AU. Oneshot. If your friends would come for you in the middle of the night, sometimes you have to repay the favor. Based on the 9 Lives Challenge prompt, but I didn't do it for the deadline.


**AN: So I saw the prompt for the AU challenge for a drunk friend calling person A and B to pick them up. I wanted to do it, just for entertainment, but I knew that I wasn't going to make the deadline or get it in the challenge. At any rate, though, I did it.**

 **I own nothing from the show.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Carol rolled over and whined at her phone in the darkness. The phone couldn't hear her, of course, and it wouldn't care anyway, but she whined at it nonetheless. Likely, even if it had been ringing, the person on the other end of the line wouldn't have been able to hear her. Picking it up and pressing the button with her thumb, she revealed to herself the digital numbers. It was a little past two in the morning. For someone in college, maybe, that wasn't a ridiculous hour to be woken up, but for Carol—who had long since left behind any resemblance to her college aged self—it was almost horrifying.

It was Sadie. Not that Carol had doubted it would be her. The text, though written in something that only vaguely resembled English, could be interpreted to mean that Sadie needed a ride. She was ready to leave. She was ready to go home, get some water, and sober up. And she needed Carol, at a little past two in the morning, to come and pick her up.

Carol had agreed to this ahead of time. She'd told Sadie it wouldn't be a problem. She didn't mind at all going to pick her and Alice both up from the party. They should go. They should have a good time. They should have a great time, even. They seldom went anywhere—one of them always having to remain sober to drive—and they should enjoy this party. Carol would pick them up. It wasn't a problem.

It was what they would do for her. They'd done it before. Like a knight in shining Jeep she'd seen both Sadie and Alice ride up to rescue her from some creep at some gathering she'd gone out to—some gathering where she'd had a little more than she could handle. And they didn't complain. So she couldn't complain.

Even if she was regretting many of her life decisions and her choices in friends at a little past two in the morning.

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"What the fuck, Al?" Daryl barked into the phone as soon as it had completed its second round through the obnoxious ringtone that was set on it. Alice, come to think of it, had set the damn tone and Daryl kept forgetting that he should change it when it wasn't ringing and annoying him.

Annoying him at two in the damn morning when he was just settling in to sleep the night before his day off.

He closed his eyes and tried to listen to her. She was slurring her words, her accent coming out much thicker than it would under any normal circumstance, but the point of her message was clear. She and Sadie were out. They'd gone, at the last minute, to the party that she'd said they weren't going to. Now she didn't know how the hell they were going to get home and they were both too trashed to drive and come in under any imaginable legal limit.

Could Daryl please come?

Of course he could.

He'd met Alice at a bar, himself, when he was having a pretty bad night. He'd drank himself into oblivion, but somehow he'd gotten home safely and even gotten comfortably into his bed with his teeth brushed better than if he'd done it himself. The brunette passed out on his couch was responsible for it and he'd driven her, the following morning, to pick up her car where she'd abandoned it at the bar to drive his truck to his house.

And she'd do it again without so much as blinking. He knew that.

Daryl owed Alice one. He owed her, if he told himself the truth, a few dozen.

"Yeah...yeah...get hold of what'cha got, Al," Daryl said into the phone. "I'm on my way. Just—this that place...that place off...Hickory? Yeah—I know it. Be there in less than half a damn hour."

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The party was being held at a restaurant that was newly opened in town. Everyone at the party was someone who had been invited for having contributed to the fund needed to build and open the place. From the looks of it, it had been a good party. As Carol pulled up, she'd never seen so many "respectable" people stumbling about in a parking lot and trying to find rides.

She got out of her car, groaning a little at how tired she was and what kind of night was probably ahead of her, and she made her way to the restaurant. She texted Sadie as she walked so that the vibration would alert the woman to her presence. The first text was simply to say that she was there. The alphabet texts that followed were nonsense to keep the phone vibrating in case Sadie's senses were dulled to a point that she might not notice the first alert.

It didn't take her long to find Sadie either, once she got inside and started to elbow her way around the small crowd still gathered there. At the moment, Sadie looked confused, disoriented, and definitely intoxicated, but she'd been trying to find Carol. As a result, she'd very nearly run into her.

Carol caught Sadie's arm and pulled her just enough to bring her toward her and Sadie came the rest of the way, a smile wiping the confusion off her face, and she wrapped her arms around Carol and sunk into her for a hug that nearly took Carol off her feet.

Carol returned the hug, although briefly, so that Sadie wouldn't grow tense and think that she was mad or annoyed or feeling any other negative emotion, and then she pushed Sadie forward to get a clear view of the woman's face.

Sadie's eyes were bloodshot. A lot of it was from alcohol, but more than likely it was also because she was tired. None of them were as young as they used to be. Sadie wasn't used to drinking this much, and she certainly wasn't used to being up this late. She was, typically, one of the first to want to call it a night.

"Where's Alice?" Carol asked, making sure to keep her face where Sadie could see her mouth clearly. It had taken her a while to become comfortable with speaking with Sadie—she'd met her through some work she'd done for her with the law firm—but Carol felt confident these days with Sadie. She was the first deaf person that Carol had ever met, and it was intimidating at first, but now? Carol could handle a few simple signs and she understood how to make reading her lips much easier for Sadie.

Right now? Sadie's skill at reading lips was going to be easier to get them through this than making her interpret Carol's poor signing.

"Alice? Did she come with you?" Carol asked. She kept her questions as simple and to the point as she could. Sadie was a remarkably intelligent woman, but everyone had their limits when they were saturated with alcohol and up past their bedtime.

A nod. That was good enough. A gesture—not a sign. A simple gesture. Alice was there. She was somewhere over there.

Carol accepted that information and parked her friend in a chair. Sadie went readily enough, clearly moments away from napping on a table, and Carol asked her to stay there. It shouldn't be hard to do. She seemed to have no desire to go anywhere.

In a rush, Carol scrambled in the direction that Sadie had indicated, forgetting decorum entirely, and yelled out Alice's name. She didn't want to leave Sadie too long because she feared that, in this state of intoxication, the woman might go to sleep and then Carol would never get her up and moving again.

She stopped, this time, because she wasn't paying attention—having caught a glimpse of Alice among a few other people—and she slammed right into a brick wall. Except, it wasn't a brick wall. Not at all. It was a man. He turned around, spitting an expletive at her, and Carol stammered out an apology.

"Every damn body around here is drunk and it's starting to get on my damn nerves," the man grumbled.

But already, he was calming down. The frustration at having been slammed into, and Carol might imagine she wasn't the first to collide with him or maybe trample his feet, was already seeping off his face.

"I'm not drunk," Carol said. "I'm sorry. I just ran into you because—I'm tired and I was distracted and it's really late. I just didn't see you. But I'm not drunk."

Slowly the frustration faded and changed to amusement on the man's face.

"Daryl," he said. "I ain't drunk neither. And I'm dog tired. Just here to rescue a friend."

"Me too," Carol said. "Two friends, actually. And I'm Carol."

"Nice to meet you," Daryl said. "Help me find mine and I'll help you with yours? I got one of mine, but I'm looking for her girlfriend and—it ain't no easy thing. She can't hear."

He laughed to himself.

"How the hell I'm supposed to find someone I can't even call out for?" Daryl added.

Carol laughed too because she could somewhat understand his frustration.

"My friend is deaf too," Carol said. "One of them. But—text her? Maybe the vibration will get her attention?"

"Good idea," Daryl said. "Except I don't got her number."

He sighed and turned back toward the direction that he'd been coming from, the very direction that Carol was going in, and Carol followed after him to get her hands on Alice and get out of there.

But before she reached her? Daryl caught hold of Alice's arm and, with a great deal of familiarity, requested from her the number for her girlfriend—a girlfriend that had better be Sadie or Alice had a hell of a lot of explaining to do before they left this place.

Rather than listening to the number being rattled off, though, through slurred speech, Carol stepped up and into Alice's line of sight. Immediately the woman gave her a broad smile and reached an arm out to pull her into her for a hug.

"Carol!" Alice declared, far too loudly. "I didn't know you were coming out here! How long have you been here?"

Carol pushed her away.

"How long have I been here?" Carol asked. "Probably fifteen minutes, Alice! Sadie texted me and told me that you didn't have a ride home and she was ready to go."

Alice looked confused. Then she laughed to herself. The laugh grew and it took her a moment to get it under control.

"Yeah," she said, drawing it out. "I mean—she's been ready to go for a while. Me too. Good fucking party. Great—drink. I had a lot to drink. Do you know where Sadie is? Because—she went to the bathroom and she's not there anymore."

Carol rolled her eyes.

Now Daryl was looking at her. He didn't seem quite as amused as Alice did.

"You know this Sadie chick?" Daryl asked.

"You don't?" Carol asked.

"Just by name," Daryl said. "And that she can't hear."

"How do you know Alice?" Carol asked.

"You her Ma?" Daryl asked with some defensiveness in his voice. Carol checked her tone and realized that maybe her words hadn't come out quite like she'd meant them.

"I'm sorry—I'm just..." Carol started.

"Tired, yeah," Daryl said. "Got that memo. I ain't exactly thrilled to be here neither. But we're here. We got Alice, but we're missing this Sadie chick."

Carol sighed.

"I know where I left her," Carol said. "But—I don't know if she's awake anymore."

Daryl seemed genuinely amused then.

"She a big girl?" He asked.

Carol shook her head.

"About that tall," she said with a gesture. Sadie was a good bit shorter than Carol. "Average."

"Then I'll haul her outta here if I gotta," Daryl confirmed. "Just—come on Al. Let's get the hell outta here."

To show he was ready to go, for certain, Daryl pulled Alice with him and she came along—wholly obedient in her drunken state—even if her steps faltered a little and Carol wrapped an arm around her to make sure that she didn't go down and have to explain at work what had happened. She led them both to the table where Sadie was leaning on her arm, halfway comatose, and Daryl didn't even ask before he simply scooped her up.

Sadie issued something of a shocked scream, but she didn't finish the sound before she caught sight of Alice and Carol. Apparently realizing they were all together, and this current bridal style mode of transportation was far preferable to stumbling around on legs that shook like a newborn calf's, Sadie sunk into Daryl and seemed to decide to start her slumber early.

Carol led the procession out, pulling Alice along with her by a hand looped around her waist, and assumed that they'd figure out—when they cleared everyone else that was milling about—what she and Daryl might do with their new wards.

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"Well I'm not pulling no damn body's pants off," Daryl declared. He was doing his best to hide his humor at the situation—both women passed out cold on the bed in front of them—because he didn't want Carol to take him any less seriously.

Carol stifled a laugh. She was trying not to wake either of the sleeping beauties that they'd somehow become responsible for, but Daryl was pretty sure that a stick of dynamite falling into a well full of gasoline wouldn't stir either of the women before at least eight solid hours had passed.

"I checked," Carol said. "They're wearing underwear, but I can't do it by myself. I'm not strong enough."

"I carried 'em in when they passed out in the cars," Daryl responded. "I—held Alice's ass up while you dug for keys you shoulda got before they passed out. I put both of 'em in the damn bed. But I'm drawing the damn line. They can sleep in their pants."

"Daryl," Carol said, already addressing him with a familiarity that made him feel like she'd known him for years instead of for an hour or so. It was a familiarity he liked more than he might have thought. "They won't be comfortable in their pants."

Daryl snorted.

"And I won't be comfortable if they're outta their pants," he responded. "And I'm fully functioning and they ain't hardly got the mind about them not to piss themselves. So I guess—my comfort wins."

Carol gave him a look that almost sent him into a barking laugh. It was testing his ability to bite everything back to remain expressionless. She was _challenging him._ She was _scolding him_ with her expression. She was expressing her _disappointment_ that he, a man that she'd known less than two really, really long hours in the middle of a night, wasn't going to perform as she'd requested.

 _And Daryl liked it._

"You look like a sturdy enough built woman," Daryl commented. "Get in there, put some elbow grease into it, and you can wiggle 'em right outta their pants. No problem."

"Sturdy?" Carol responded. "Sturdy? What does that mean? Are you calling me fat?"

Daryl snorted then. It got away from him. He shook his head.

"No," he said. "Not at all. I'm just tired and trying to get outta doing this, but you ain't gonna let me out of it."

Carol smirked and shook her head. Daryl sighed and shook his in response for a different reason than her use of the gesture.

"Undo the things," Daryl said.

Carol crawled onto the bed, rocking the women and the mattress as she went, and Daryl kept trying to keep his eyes from looking at her ass in that position. It wasn't polite—but nothing about this night was going to come in at the height of decorum. So he did let himself catch a little more than a glimpse of it. It wasn't at all offensive—and it certainly didn't make him nearly as uncomfortable as the task he was being asked to do.

When Carol got off the bed, without thinking about it, Daryl caught her arm and helped her to steady herself in the transfer from mattress to solid floor. Then, without ceremony, he grabbed the bottom of Sadie's pants and jerked them off—with the same movement as someone trying to clear a table cloth off a table and leave the dishes in place—and then he did the same to Alice. He crumpled the pants on the floor for both women to find in the morning while Carol covered the sleeping women with a blanket.

"They're probably going to wonder where the fabric burn on their asses came from," Carol said with a certain amount of amusement. "You think you could have done that a little gentler?"

"Could've," Daryl said. "But I'm not in the practice of gently taking pants off women I don't aim to touch more than I have to."

He followed Carol around the house—Alice's house, though Sadie practically lived there—and followed her instructions to put the small bathroom trash cans by the bed and leave full glasses of water on the bedside tables.

Then he followed her out. Standing on the porch, about to dismount the steps and head to where their cars were parked, Daryl reached a hand out and caught Carol's shoulder. She looked back at him, though her face wasn't clearly visible in the dark—a darkness that would soon break into the first light of morning—and Daryl swallowed.

He'd just met her and yet he wasn't quite ready to say goodbye.

"Been a busy night," Daryl said.

Carol hummed.

"Thank you for your help," she said. "I don't know what Sadie was thinking. I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own."

Daryl laughed at that.

"Me either," he said. "Sun'll come up soon."

Carol hummed at that. She agreed. It wouldn't be long. That was simple fact.

"I don't know about you," Daryl said. "But—it's been a long time since I could just fall asleep an time I pleased. I won't be going back to sleep tonight."

Carol sighed.

"I wish I was," she said, "but the truth is that I probably won't fall asleep either."

That's what Daryl wanted to hear. He cleared his throat.

"You wanna—get some breakfast?" He asked. "There's a place just a mile out from town. Little dirty spoon diner. Not too impressive, but it's open twenty four hours. Good food."

Carol hummed like she was going to refuse and Daryl prepared himself for it. It didn't mean that it was him, after all. It was the middle of the night. Even if she wasn't going to sleep, that didn't mean she felt like going to breakfast.

But then she surprised him.

"Yeah," she said. "That sounds—great, actually. Coffee?"

Daryl smiled to himself, sure she couldn't really see him in the dark that still hadn't broken into light.

"You know it," he said. "You like pancakes? Real good pancakes."

"I do," Carol said. "I love them."

Daryl took a chance and rested a hand on her shoulder, guiding her toward the steps to finally leave the porch.

"Take two cars?" Daryl asked.

"Take yours?" Carol asked. "I'd rather not drive anymore until after I get some coffee in me."

"Leave yours here?" Daryl asked.

"It'll be safe," Carol responded. "And—you can drop me back by here? After breakfast?"

Daryl agreed to that easily.

"What if they wake up?" He asked. "Wonder what happened? Where you are?"

Carol laughed quietly.

"Somehow," she said, "I think they'll know."


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